eyewitness tesitmony Flashcards
leading question
questions that imply a specific answer
eyewitness testimony
evidence given by witnesses in a crime/accident
post-event discussion
when recall of an event is influenced by a second-party opinion
what did loftus and palmer do to test misleading information?
showed 45 ppts of a film of a car accident and asked “how fast was the car going before it hit each other?”. using different verbs for each group.
what was the verb with the highest and lowest speed?
contacted with 32mph and smashed with 41 mph
what did gabbert et al do to test post event discussion?
videos of crimes shot in different perspectives where shown to pairs of ppts
the results for gabbert et al?
71% of the ppts who were allowed to discuss the events said things that were not shown in the video. compared to 0%
what did gabber et al find?
witnesses will change their statement to match other witnesses to gain social approval
weapon focus effect
witnesses are distracted by the weapon held by the criminal
what did johson and scott do?
tested effect of anxiety on EWT by placing naive ppts outside a lab exposed to two types of conversations
what was the two conversations?
- normal convo about a equipment failure, man walks out with greasy hands and a pen
- breaking glass and furniture knocking over, man walks out with a knife covered in blood
results for johnson and scott?
asked to identify the man from 50 pictures
1. 49% accuracy with man with pen
2. 33% accuracy with man with knife
strengths of effect on EWT
research led to real life applications, development of cognitive interview
weakenesses of effect on EWT
- most studies are unethical
- lab studies - ppts aware that there is a lack of consequences in the evidence they give
4 steps to cognitive interview
- context reinstatement
- recall everything
- change perspective
- reverse order
